Riley’s Ramblings: Undefeated Auburn Baseball Recieving National Attention and Saturday is a Must Win For Auburn Basketball

For the sixth time in program history, Auburn University is undefeated through their first nine games of the season. Auburn baseball has been on a roll recently, highlighted by their two series sweeps of Longwood State and Bryant University at home. On Monday, Baseball America released their latest college baseball top 25 rankings that featured the Tigers in the number 25 spot. Their 8-7 victory over South Alabama in Mobile on Tuesday night must be a momentum booster as well, because the Jaguars are ranked 21st in the nation by Baseball America and 20th in the nation by D1Baseball and should lead to Auburn going up in the rankings.

The biggest bright spot during the young season has been their weekend rotation. Through two starts and 12.0 innings, Auburn Freshman Tanner Burns has only given up one earned run and earned the win in his first start against Longwood State. Casey Mize got the win in both of his starts and has racked up 16 strikeouts in his 11.0 innings of work. Andrew Mitchell and Calvin Coker have also been very solid for the Tigers out of the bullpen.

Auburn will put their perfect record on the line this weekend against BYU at home. Game one will start at 5:00 and games two and three will be a double header on Saturday (12:00 and 3:30). Auburn is going in a positive direction in nonconference play and will need to use these games to keep gaining momentum and team chemistry until conference play starts on March 16th against Texas A&M.

The double digit win against rival Alabama at home looked like it was going to be a huge momentum booster for Auburn Basketball, but the last couple of games have not gone to plan for the Tigers as they lost to Florida and Arkansas on the road. After dropping the last two games, the SEC regular season title that seemed to be in the bag for Auburn is now in question with one regular season game left. Auburn and Tennessee are tied at the top of the conference standings and Auburn either needs to win against South Carolina on Saturday or have Tennessee lose against Georgia (Auburn receives the tiebreaker for winning the head-to-head matchup).

Auburn looks like they have fallen victim to playing teams late in the season that are on the bubble in Florida and Arkansas and probably want the win more than the Tigers do. However, Auburn has a great chance to rebound against South Carolina at home on Saturday afternoon. Auburn has been almost unbeatable in front of the home crowd, and getting the win would be huge as it would give them the number one seed in the SEC Tournament in St. Louis.

Despite the two tough road losses and the injury to Anfrenee Maclamore, Auburn is still a great team with a lot of heart. Fans need to keep in mind that they are still ranked 14th in the nation and are projected to be a three seed in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. I can easily see Auburn as a sweet sixteen team if they shoot the ball well going into the NCAA Tournament.